Montreal photographer Isabelle Hayeur, in her new series “Underworlds”, makes use of digital technology to reveal the existing tensions between aquatic ecosystems and the environments above. This new body of work focuses on the Chemical Coast of New Jersey and the Rossville Boat Graveyard of Staten Island. While respecting the fundamental nature of each place, Hayeur digitally manipulates the images. Her process, which is somewhere between documentation and fiction, echoes the distortions that industrial society imposes on the contemporary landscape. A strange poetry arises as the artist approaches these modern monuments as if they were ruins.

Isabelle Hayeur is simultaneously participating in the exhibition “Songs of the Future: Canadian Industrial Photographs, 1858 to Today” at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Her works have been presented in numerous institutions, including the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the National Gallery of Canada, the MASS MoCA, and many others.